Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 12, 2010 Sports
Colin E. H. Croft
Everyone remembers very pertinent events in their existence, might it be death, marriage, sports, or even world events like the 1st moon landing or assassinations.
It was December 1960. I was 7, and in 2nd Standard at Lady Denham (Lancaster) Government Primary School. There were no televisions in Guyana (British Guiana), and the only news was on radio, or in days-late newspapers. I had no stresses at all.
However, I remember, vividly, both of my parents awaking me in the middle of nights to listen to West Indies play cricket against Australia.
The tool of conduit for the commentary team, led by the incomparable Alan Mc Gilvray – ‘The Voice of Australian Cricket Broadcasting’ from 1934 to 1985 – coming across as loud and as clear as the Short and Medium Wave frequencies, and massive static, would allow, was a Phillips radio that was larger than any of today’s 21–inch televisions.
People of that certain age would also remember the plastic-encased dry battery, as large as a present-day car battery, attached to radios, and glass tubes, which had to glow, that were included in radios, thus converting radio waves, to electrical pulses, to sound, so that cricket commentary could be generated! Oh, for the innocence and pleasure!
That was my initiation to the listening and coverage of international cricket! Wonderful! The euphoric insomnia cultivated from that tour has lived with me since!
I am sure that I am one of very few anywhere who has tapes – VCR & DVD – actual game-by-game, innings-by-innings, of that earth-shattering series. They are priceless!
This week, like ‘Blade – Revisited’, West Indies and Australia are reminiscing that 1960/61 series – 50 years ago – and especially that 1st Test; the 1st Tied Test ever.
When the West Indies toured Australia in 2000/01, the 40th anniversary of 1st Tied Test, the living participants of that great game were invited back to Brisbane’s Wooloongabba, for another 1st Test. By then, West Indies had become a mere shadow of what it was.
While doing commentary, I clearly remember the veteran West Indians physically cringing as they saw West Indies being diced, decimated and dismembered by the pace of Glen McGrath; dismissed for 82 and 124; to lose that game in three days. Many sighed openly, wantonly wishing they had still been playing. How times had changed by then!
So, 1474 runs were scored in that 1960/61 1st Test, including two centuries; by West Indies’ (Sir) Garfield Sobers – 132; and Australian Norman O’Neil – 181; innings that were so good that they are still spoken about to this day.
These two certainly are legends of all time. That game, and series, made life-long legends and great friendships too!
The bowlers in that 1st Test also did well. Left-handed Australian fast-bowling all-rounder Alan Davidson, one of the many older cricketers I have had the honour and pleasure to meet – the man loves cricket and a true gentleman – was colossal in that game, with match figures of 11–222 and 120 runs. Now, that is real all-round cricket!
Wesley Hall, the original “Pace like fire”, 23 years old back then, was smoking; turbos pumping! He did some real damage with match figures of 9–203, and also made his 1st Test half century. West Indies certainly does not produce them like him anymore!
Captain Frank Worrell surprisingly opened the bowling with his ‘medium dobblers’, and also managed 65 runs in each 1st Test innings. Worrell even got the 1st Australian wicket – Colin Mc Donald; bowled for 18 – as the hosts set out to get 233 to win the match, and lead the series. The rest is nostalgic history, something of a fairy tale in real cricket life!
Strange stories came from that game. Apparently, Worrell told Hall that whatever he did, there should be no ‘no-balls’ in that last over. None were bowled, which is a surprise, given that the overs were of eight balls, not the present six, and that Hall had been bowling for hours; 36 overs in the game to that point. Then, two batsmen were run out!
When Richie Benaud was out, for 52, ‘caught behind’ by Franz Alexander, from Hall’s bowling; his, the day’s and the game’s last over; Australia needed only 5 more runs, from the last five deliveries left, to win, and still had two batsmen to come to the crease.
One of Australia’s best wicket-keepers ever, Wally Grout, was promptly run out, for 2, from a direct return from West Indies opener extraordinaire, Conrad Hunte. But Australia still had
one more wicket left, and by then, the scores had been tied at 232.
I love photography. If you ever see a monochrome photograph of the final dismissal, it confirms that ‘a picture tells a millions words.’ It is an all-time great of still sports action!
Rohan Kanhai is airborne over the pitch, as he appeals for the run out. Wicket-keeper Alexander is up to the stumps, hands in air, appealing. Hall is off mid-pitch, perplexed, appealing too for the run out. Perhaps the coolest man there, Worrell, is at the bowler’s – non-striker’s – end, in case the return had come to him to effect that run out. It did not.
Meanwhile, the batsmen, Ian Meckiff and Lindsay Kline, had set off for the winning run, the ball being hit out, by Kline, to Joe Solomon, fielding at deep square leg.
Kline is looking back at his partner, Meckiff, as Meckiff strains and stretches every sinew to get into his ground and complete that winning run. His bat is clearly airborne as the ball, returned from the outfield by Solomon, who must have been seeing only one stump from his angle, crashes into the stumps; out, run out for 2.
The scores were tied, for the 1st time ever. Ironically, the man who created that truly historic ending, Joe Solomon, is nowhere in the picture!
After West Indies 1950 tour of England, when Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine became ‘those little pals of mine’, that 1960/61 series against Australia has been seen as being extremely pivotal, catalytic, for the emergence of West Indies cricket excellence.
By series’ end, Australia had, only just, scraped home as 2-1 winners. Australia won the 2nd Test, by seven wickets, at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), while West Indies won the 3rd, at Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) by 222 runs.
The 4th Test, at the same Adelaide Cricket Ground where England just beat Australia so badly, by an innings, was drawn in 1960/61. Australia, won the last game by the sheerest of margins, by just two wickets. Cricket was never the same again. It was so alive again!
Especially Australia – West Indies cricket relations could never have been closer. Cammie Smith, Benaud, Hall, Lance Gibbs, Sobers, Bobby Simpson et al would tell you that it was the very best series that they have ever played.
More than 500,000 Australians applauded as the West Indians were motor-caded to the airport for departure. Never was such friendship and appreciation for a cricket series been shown by the opposition’s supporters. Yet, it all started with that 1st ever Tied Test!
Enjoy.
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